Letting Go to Inspire Creativity

Here's a picture of my kids finishing up their Eric Carle pages. The girl on the left missed a class, so she came up with her own image: Bilbo Baggins. We made fabric pictures last week and she made the Eye of Sauron. I'm guessing she loves JRR Tolkein. 

The girl on the right just really wanted to make a Toucan. Now she's adding the forest in the background. All the boys in my class this year made monsters instead of animals. I love that! 

I love coming up with projects where kids can feel free to use their imaginations. They come up with such interesting stuff! 

Last year, I had a student who was ob-SESSED with Titanic. Everything he did was somehow related to the day it sank. Another student really loved monsters and video games. Each lesson was designed to give each student a creative outlet to share what they loved. At the end of the session, if you flipped through any of my student's sketchbooks, they would all be completely different, and I could probably tell you which one belonged to each kid.

If every sketchbook was a carbon copy of each other, then I have failed as an art teacher. Luckily, I can walk away from this summer session feeling pretty successful that my students' sketchbooks are full of ideas and images that they love. 

Artist: Berndnaut Smilde

Berndnaut Smilde

Nimbus II

Um, can we talk about the fact that this artist has created indoor clouds? Who does that?! This image isn't photoshopped. He literally figured out how to perfectly control the climate of an empty room to hold a cloud. Check out this article to find out how he does it. 

"I'm interested in the ephemeral aspect of the work," Smilde said in an email. "It's there for a brief moment and then the cloud falls apart. It's about the potential of the idea, but in the end if will never function." - Berndnaut Smilde

Artist: Hung Liu

Hung Liu

Lade Gege, 2010

mixed media

I simply cannot get enough of this painting. What don't I love? I love her eyebrows, and her lips, that gorgeous monstrosity on her head?! Can we talk about the bird? It reminds me of that part in the Sex + the City movie where Carrie puts a blue bird on her head as a replacement for her wedding veil. What started off as a simple wedding turned into this gaudy, boisterous affair at the NY public library with a crazy dress and gorgeous decorations. After she gets left at the altar and is processing what that feels like, she reflects on how the wedding plans got out of hand. 

"I put a BIRD...on my HEAD."

That was honestly my first thought. 

I love that a piece of art can become so much more than paint on a surface. I enjoy finding connections to my personal life that the artist would never think about, like a movie I obsessed over three years ago.

First raw impressions: 

The pink part looks like cotton candy. 

I wonder what purpose that hat serves.

Who is this girl?

Whoever she is, she can definitely pull this look off.

I wish I were brave enough to wear, truly, whatever I wanted. 

Walking with a huge hat on your head must feel similar to walking in five-inch heels.

I bet you can't play soccer in that outfit. 

Does she want to play soccer? Or is she happy with the hat?

Where on earth would you wear that?

I want to be brave like her.

Artist: Edward Hopper

Edward HopperNew York Movie, 1939oil on canvas
Edward Hopper has been one of my favorite artists for a long time.  He is best known for his realistic depictions of urban and rural scenes. How many pieces of art can you name that depict places like diners and movie theaters? That's what Hopper painted best. I guess I like his art because he usually pinpoints a person or two, and I always want to get inside their head. There's always a little bit of a mystery in his work, which intrigues me. Hopper was just that kind of person, though. You could never get a lot out of him, and when asked about his work, he would say, "The whole answer is there on the canvas." He wants you to find out what his painting means to you. Once he paints it, it's no longer his. It's yours. In 1953, he did release this statement to an art journal:"Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world. No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination."I imagine Edward Hopper as this quiet, introverted man, who could only communicate his deepest thoughts on a canvas. That's probably why he was so successful.